Syria Palaestina ( ) was the renamed Roman province formerly known as Judaea, possibly due to the Roman suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in what was known as Palaestina (Palestine) between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. The provincial capital was Caesarea Maritima.de Vaux, Roland (1978), The Early History of Israel, p. 2: "After the revolt of Bar Cochba in 135, the Roman province of Judaea was renamed Palestinian Syria." Diocletian added to it in c. 300 much of the province of Arabia Petraea. It forms part of the timeline of Roman Palestine, the term used for the Southern Levant or Palestine region while under indirect or direct Roman rule.
Background
The kingdom of Herod the Great was split into a tetrarchy in 4 BC, which was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with the neighbouring Roman province of Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. The capital of the Roman province of Judaea shifted from Jerusalem to Caesarea Maritima, which, according to historian Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson, had been the "administrative capital" of the region beginning in 6 AD.
The Roman province of Judaea had, at its height, incorporated the historical regions of Judea (including Idumea), Samaria, Galilee, and additional parts of the former territory of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Judea. It inherited its name and territory from Herod Archelaus's client state of Judaea, which had formed the core of the Herodian Tetrarchy, but Roman Judaea eventually encompassed a much larger territory than Herod Archelaus's dominion. The name "Judaea" ultimately traces to the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah.
Following the deposition of Herod Archelaus in 6 AD, Judaea came under direct Roman rule, during which time the Roman governor was given authority to punish by execution. The general population also began to be taxed by Rome.Josephus, De Bello Judaico (Wars of the Jews) 2.8.1 . However, Jewish leaders retained broad discretion over affairs within Judaism.
History During the 1st and 2nd centuries, Judaea became the epicenter of a series of unsuccessful large-scale Jewish rebellions against Rome, known as the Jewish-Roman Wars. The Roman suppression of these revolts led to wide-scale destruction, a very high toll of life and enslavement. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136) erupted. Judea's countryside was devastated, and many were killed, displaced or sold into slavery.Eck, Werner. "Sklaven und Freigelassene von Römern in Iudaea und den angrenzenden Provinzen" (in German), Novum Testamentum 55 (2.13), pp. 1–21. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt.Oppenheimer, A'haron and Oppenheimer, Nili. Between Rome and Babylon: Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society. Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 2.
Following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina, and Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina,Ben-Sasson, H.H. (1976). A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, , page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."Lewin, Ariel (2005). The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine. Getty Publications, p. 33. . "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name - one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus - Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land." a term occasionally used among Greco-Romans for centuries to describe the Southern Levant.A Syria-Palaestina included Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Idumaea, and Philistia. The province retained its capital, Caesarea Maritima, and therefore remained distinct from Syria, which was located further north with its capital in Antioch. Jerusalem, which held special religious significance for the Jews but had been destroyed, was rebuilt as the colonia Aelia Capitolina. Jews were forbidden to settle there or in the immediate vicinity.
While Syria was divided into several smaller provinces by Septimius Severus, and later again by Diocletian, Syria Palaestina survived into late antiquity. Presumably, it was small enough not to become dangerous as a potential starting point for usurpation attempts. Instead, Diocletian even integrated parts of Arabia Petraea into the province, namely the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula. He moved the Legio X Fretensis from Aelia Capitolina to Aila (today's Eilat/Aqaba) to secure the country against Arab incursions. The part of the Roman imperial border that now ran through Palestine was subsequently placed under its own supreme commander, the dux Palaestinae, who is known from the Notitia Dignitatum.Notitia Dignitatum, Chapter 34. The border wall, the Limes Arabicus, which had existed for some time, was pushed further south.Keel, Othmar; Küchler, Max; Uehlinger, Christoph (1984). Orte und Landschaften der Bibel. Ein Handbuch und Studien-Reiseführer zum Heiligen Land. Vol. 1: Geographisch-geschichtliche Landeskunde (in German). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttinge, , p. 281 f.
Late Roman administration is also illuminated by the so-called Diocletian boundary stones, a series of several dozen inscriptions from the Golan Heights and Hula Valley marking village lands and tax jurisdictions.
The Crisis of the Third Century (235–284) affected Syria Palaestina, but the fourth century brought an economic upswing due to the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the associated upswing in Christian pilgrimage to the "Holy Land". In the course of late antiquity, with imperial support, Christianity succeeded in asserting itself against both remnants of Semitic as well as trending Hellenistic Paganism in the land.
The province was split into smaller ones during the fourth and fifth centuries. In 358, areas that had formerly belonged to Arabia Petraea were transformed into a separate province of Palaestina Salutaris with Petra as its capital. The remaining territory was named Palaestina Prima. Around the year 400, it had been further split into a smaller Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda. Palaestina Prima included the heartland with the capital at Caesarea, while Palaestina Secunda extended to Galilee, the Golan, and parts of the Transjordan and its capital was Scythopolis (now Beit She'an).Pahlitzsch, Johannes (2000). Palaestina III: Römische und byzantinische Zeit (in German). In: Der Neue Pauly (DNP). Vol. 9, Metzler, Stuttgart, , Sp. 160–162, here Sp. 162. Salutaris was named Palaestina Tertia or Salutaris.
Name
The name Syria Palaestina was introduced by the Roman authorities in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD), when the province of Judaea was renamed. Most scholars interpret this renaming as a deliberate attempt by the Romans to suppress Jewish identification with the land and to erase the province's association with the Jewish people.; While the Romans frequently renamed provinces for administrative or political reasons, the renaming of Judaea is widely regarded as unique, as the only known case where a province's name was changed explicitly as a punitive response to a rebellion.
The precise date and motivations behind the name change remain uncertain, though circumstantial evidence points to Emperor Hadrian's involvement. Coins issued by Hadrian before the revolt still refer to Judaea, while a military diploma from 139 AD already uses the new name. The former name carried a clear ethnic association with the Jewish people, whereas the new designation was devoid of explicit ethnic connotations. The renaming coincided with broader Roman efforts to suppress Jewish national identity, including the imposition of restrictions on Jewish religious practices, the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, and the refounding of the city as Aelia Capitolina.
Classicist Louis Feldman writes that the aim was to "obliterate the Jewish character of the land, with the name of the nearest tribe being applied to the entire area", writing that the term Palestina had previously referred mainly to the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines in the Iron Age and that early Roman authors typically distinguished it from Judaea; By applying the name of a neighboring people—the Philistines—to the entire region, the Roman authorities sought to symbolically sever the connection between the Jews and their ancestral homeland. Historian Ze'ev Safrai writes that the renaming was motivated by the "effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land." Historian Werner Eck writes that the renaming was a deliberate and exceptional act of punishment. He rejects demographic explanations—pointing to rebellious provinces such as Germania, Pannonia, and Britannia, which retained their names despite revolts and population loss—and emphasizes that Judaea alone lost its ethnically derived name as a symbolic measure to punish the Jews and sever their connection to the land. At the end of the war, a drastic decision was made, probably by Hadrian himself, to change the name of the province from Judaea to Syria Palaestina. ... The change of name was part of the punishment inflicted on the Jews; they were punished with the loss of a name. This is the clear message of this exceptional measure, the one and only example of such a measure in the history of the Empire.
Alongside the dominating explanation of the renaming as a punishment, there are also other theories. David Jacobson suggests that the renaming may have been a practical choice, intended to reflect that the Roman province encompassed a much larger area than the traditional district of Judea, and to draw on a name with ancient regional associations. He also notes that the name was historically linked to the broader region of greater Israel. The name Syria-Palaestina was already in use in the Greco-Roman world at least five centuries earlier. Herodotus, for example, used the term in the 5th century BC when discussing the component parts of the fifth province of the Achaemenid Empire: Phoenicia, Cyprus, "and that part of Syria which is called Palestine".The term Syria-Palaestina was already in use in the Greco-Roman world at least five centuries earlier. Herodotus, for example, used the term in the 5th century BC when discussing the component parts of the fifth province of the Achaemenid Empire: Phoenicia, Cyprus, "and that part of Syria which is called Palestine" (). "The full Herodotus quote is "from the town of Posideion, which was founded by Amphilocus son of Amphiaraus, on the border between Cilicia and Syria, beginning from this as far as Egypt —omitting Arabian territory (which was free of tax), came 350 talents. In this province there is the whole of Phoenicia and that part of Syria which is called Palestine, and Cyprus. This is the fifth province" Historian Seth Schwartz writes that the name was intended to "celebrate the de-Judaization of the province." Historian Ronald Syme suggested the name change preceded the revolt, possibly reflecting "Hadrian's decided opinions about Jews."